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THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN 
AND HELL 



THE MARRIAGE OF 
HEAVEN AND HELL 

BY 
WILLIAM BLAKE 



r 



BOSTON 

JOHN W. LUCE AND COMPANY 

igo6 



• MB 



Gift 

H. L, Mencken. 



■JAN n 8 



192S 



THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN 
AND HELL 

THE ARGUMENT 

RINTRAH roars and shakes his 
fires in the burdenM air, 
Hungry clouds swag on the deep. 

Once meek, and in a perilous path 

The just man kept his course along 

The Vale of Death. 

Roses are planted where thorns grow, 

And on the barren heath 

Sing the honey bees. 

Then the perilous path was planted, 
And a river and a spring 
On every cliff and tomb; 

5 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

And on the bleached bones 
Red clay brought forth: 
Till the villain left the paths of ease 
To walk in perilous paths, and drive 
The just man into barren climes. 

Now the sneaking serpent walks 
In mild humility ; 

And the just man rages in the wilds 
Where Uons roam. 

Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in 

the burdened air, 
Hungry clouds swag on the deep. 

As a new heaven is begun, and it is 
now thirty-three years since its advent, 
the Eternal Hell revives. And lo! 
Swedenborg is the angel sitting at 
the tomb: his writings are the Unen 
clothes folded up. Now is the domin- 
ion of Edom, and the return of Adam 
into Paradise. — See Isaiah xxxiv. and 
XXXV. chap. 

6 



HEAVEN AND HELL 

Without contraries is no progres- 
sion. Attraction and repulsion, rea- 
son and energy, love and hate, are 
necessary to human existence. 

From these contraries spring what 
the religious call Good and Evil. 
Good is the passive that obeys reason; 
Evil is the active springing from 
Energy. 

Good is heaven. Evil is hell. 



THE MARRIAGE OF 



THE VOICE OF THE DEVIL 

All Bibles or sacred codes have been 
the cause of the following errors : — 

1. That man has two real existing 
principles, viz., a Body and a Soul. 

2. That Energy, called Evil, is alone 
from the Body ; and that Reason, called 
Good, is alone from the Soul. 

3. That God will torment man in 
Eternity for following his Energies. 

But the following contraries to 
these are true : — 

1 . Man has no Body distinct from his 
Soul. For that called Body is a por- 
tion of Soul discerned by the five senses, 
the chief inlets of Soul in this age. 

2 . Energy is the only life , and is from 
the Body; and Reason is the bound 
or outward circumference of Energy. 

8 



HEAVEN AND HELL 

3. Energy is Eternal Delight. 

Those who restrain desire, do so 
because theirs is weak enough to be 
restrained; and the restrainer or 
reason usurps its place and governs 
the unwilling. 

And being restrained, it by degrees 
becomes passive, till it is only the 
shadow of desire. 

The history of this is written in 
Paradise Lost, and the Governor or 
Reason is called Messiah. 

And the original Archangel or pos- 
sessor of the command of the heavenly 
host is called the Devil, or Satan, and 
his children are called Sin and Death. 

But in the book of Job, Milton's 
Messiah is called Satan. 

For this history has been adopted by 
both parties. 

It indeed appeared to Reason as if 

9 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

desire was cast out, but the Devil's 
account is, that the Messiah fell, and 
formed a heaven of what he stole from 
the abyss. 

This is shown in the Gospel, where 
he prays to the Father to send the 
Comforter or desire that Reason may 
have ideas to build on, the Jehovah 
of the Bible being no other than he 
who dwells in flaming fire. Know 
that after Christ's death he became 
Jehovah. 

But in Milton, the Father is Destiny, 
the Son a ratio of the five senses, and 
the Holy Ghost vacuum ! 

Note. — The reason Milton wrote 
in fetters when he wrote of Angels 
and God, and at Uberty when of 
Devils and Hell, is because he was 
a true poet, and of the Devil's party 
without knowing it. 



10 



HEAVEN AND HELL 



A MEMORABLE FANCY 

As I was walking among the fires 
of Hell, delighted with the enjoyments 
of Genius, which to Angels look like 
torment and insanity, I collected some 
of their proverbs, thinking that as the 
sayings used in a nation mark its 
character, so the proverbs of Hell show 
the nature of infernal wisdom better 
than any description of buildings or 
garments. 

When I came home, on the abyss 
of the five senses, where a flat-sided 
steep frowns over the present world, I 
saw a mighty Devil folded in black 
clouds hovering on the sides of the 
rock; with corroding fires he wrote 
the following sentence now perceived 
by the minds of men, and read by 
them on earth : — 

II 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

"How do you know but every bird 
that cuts the airy way 
Is an immense world of delight, 
closed by your senses five?" 



12 



HEAVEN AND HELL 



PROVERBS OF HELL 

In seed-time learn, in harvest teach, 
in winter enjoy. 

Drive your cart and your plough 
over the bones of the dead. 

The road of excess leads to the 
palace of wisdom. 

Prudence is a rich ugly old maid 
courted by Incapacity. 

He who desires, but acts not, breeds 
pestilence. 

The cut worm forgives the plough. 

Dip him in the river who loves 
water. 

A fool sees not the same tree that a 
wise man sees. 

He whose face gives no light shall 
never become a star. 

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THE MARRIAGE OF 

Eternity is in love with the produc- 
tions of time. 

The busy bee has no time for sor- 
row. 

The hours of folly are measured by 
the clock, but of wisdom no clock can 
measure. 

All wholesome food is caught with- 
out a net or a trap. 

Bring out number, weight, and 
measure in a year of dearth. 

No bird soars too high if he soars 
with his own wings. 

A dead body revenges not injuries. 

The most sublime act is to set an- 
other before you. 

If the fool would persist in his folly 
he would become wise. 

Folly is the cloak of knavery. 

Shame is Pride's cloak. 

14 



HEAVEN AND HELL 

Prisons are built with stones of law, 
brothels with bricks of religion. 

The pride of the peacock is the 
glory of God. 

The lust of the goat is the bounty 
of God. 

The wrath of the lion is the wisdom 
of God. 

The nakedness of woman is the 
work of God. 

Excess of sorrow laughs, excess of 
joy weeps. 

The roaring of lions, the howling of 
wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, 
and the destructive sword, are por- 
tions of Eternity too great for the eye 
of man. 

The fox condemns the trap, not 
himself. 

Joys impregnate, sorrows bring 
forth. 

15 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

Let man wear the fell of the lion, 
woman the fleece of the sheep. 

The bird a nest, the spider a web, 
man friendship. 

The selfish smiling fool and the 
sullen frowning fool shall be both 
thought wise that they may be a rod. 

What is now proved was once only 
imagined. 

The rat, the mouse, the fox, the 
rabbit watch the roots; the Hon, the 
tiger, the horse, the elephant watch 
the fruits. 

The cistern contains, the fountain 
overflows. 

One thought fills immensity. 

Always be ready to speak your 
mind, and a base man will avoid you. 

Everything possible to be believed 
is an image of truth. 

The eagle never lost so much time 

z6 



HEAVEN AND HELL 

as when he submitted to learn of the 
crow. 

The fox provides for himself, but 
God provides for the lion. 

Think in the morning, act in the 
noon, eat in the evening, sleep in the 
night. 

He who has suffered you to impose 
on him knows you. 

As the plough follows words, so 
God rewards prayers. 

The tigers of wrath are wiser than 
the horses of instruction. 

Expect poison from the standing 
water. 

You never know what is enough 
unless you know what is more than 
enough. 

Listen to the fool's reproach; it is a 
kingly title. 

The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, 

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THE MARRIAGE OF 

the mouth of water, the beard of 
earth. 

The weak in courage is strong in 
cunning. 

The apple tree never asks the beech 
how he shall grow, nor the lion the 
horse how he shall take his prey. 

The thankful receiver bears a plenti- 
ful harvest. 

If others had not been foolish we 
should have been so. 

The soul of sweet delight can never 
be defiled. 

When thou seest an eagle, thou 
seest a portion of Genius. Lift up thy 
head! 

As the caterpillar chooses the fairest 
leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest 
lays his curse on the fairest joys. 

To create a little flower is the labour 
of ages. 

i8 



HEAVEN AND HELL 

Damn braces; bless relaxes. 

The best wine is the oldest, the best 
water the newest. 

Prayers plough not; praises reap 
not; joys laugh not; sorrows weep 
not. 

The head Sublime, the heart Pathos, 
the genitals Beauty, the hands and 
feet Proportion. 

As the air to a bird, or the sea 
to a fish, so is contempt to the con- 
temptible. 

The crow wished everything was 
black; the owl that everything was 
white. 

Exuberance is Beauty. 

If the lion was advised by the fox, 
he would be cunning. 

Improvement makes straight roads, 
but the crooked roads without Improve- 
ment are roads of Genius. 

19 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

Sooner murder an infant in its 
cradle than nurse unacted desires. 

Where man is not, nature is barren. 

Truth can never be told so as to be 
understood and not to be believed. 

Enough! or Too much. 

The ancient poets animated all sen- 
sible objects with Gods or Geniuses, 
calling them by the names and adorn- 
ing them with properties of woods, 
rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, na- 
tions, and whatever their enlarged 
and numerous senses could perceive. 
And particularly they studied the 
Genius of each city and country, 
placing it under its mental deity. Till 
a system was formed, which some 
took advantage of and enslaved the 
vulgar by attempting to realize or 
abstract the mental deities from their 
objects. Thus began Priesthood. 

20 



HEAVEN AND HELL 

Choosing forms of worship from 
poetic tales. And at length they pro- 
nounced that the Gods had ordered 
such things. Thus men forgot that 
all deities reside in the human breast. 



21 



THE MARRIAGE OF 



A MEMORABLE FANCY 

The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel 
dined with me, and I asked them how 
they dared so roundly to assert that 
God spoke to them, and whether they 
did not think at the time that they 
would be misunderstood, and so be 
the cause of imposition. 

Isaiah answered: "I saw no God, 
nor heard any, in a finite organical 
perception: but my senses discovered 
the infinite in everything; and as I 
was then persuaded, and remained 
confirmed, that the voice of honest 
indignation is the voice of God, I cared 
not for consequences, but wrote.'* 

Then I asked: "Does a firm per- 
suasion that a thing is so, make it 
so?" 

He replied: "All poets believe that 

22 



HEAVEN AND HELL 

it does, and in ages of imagination 
this firm persuasion removed moun- 
tains; but many are not capable of a 
firm persuasion of anything." 

Then Ezekiel said : " The philosophy 
of the East taught the first principles 
of human perception; some nations 
held one principle for the origin, and 
some another. We of Israel taught 
that the Poetic Genius (as you now 
call it) was the first principle, and all 
the others merely derivative, which 
was the cause of our despising the 
Priests and Philosophers of other 
countries, and prophesying that all 
Gods would at last be proved to origi- 
nate in ours, and to be the tributaries 
of the Poetic Genius. It was this that 
our great poet King David desired so 
fervently, and invokes so pathetically, 
saying by this he conquers enemies 
and governs kingdoms; and we so 
loved our Ggd that we cursed in His 

i3 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

name all the deities of surrounding 
nations, and asserted that they had 
rebelled. From these opinions the 
vulgar came to think that all nations 
would at last be subject to the Jews. 

"This," said he, "like all firm per- 
suasions, is come to pass, for all 
nations believe the Jews' code, and 
worship the Jews' God; and what 
greater subjection can be?" 

I heard this with some wonder, and 
must confess my own conviction. 
After dinner I asked Isaiah to favour 
the world with his lost works; he said 
none of equal value was lost. Ezekiel 
said the same of his. 

I also asked Isaiah what made him 
go naked and barefoot three years. 
He answered: "The same that made 
our friend Diogenes the Grecian." 

I then asked Ezekiel why he ate 
dung, and lay so long on his right and 

24 



HEAVEN AND HELL 

left side. He answered: "The desire 
of raising other men into a perception 
of the infinite. This the North Ameri- 
can tribes practise. And is he honest 
who resists his genius or conscience, 
only for the sake of present ease or 
gratification?" 

The ancient tradition that the world 
will be consumed in fire at the end of 
six thousand years is true, as I have 
heard from Hell. 

For the cherub with his flaming 
sword is hereby commanded to leave 
his guard at [the] tree of life, and 
when he does, the whole creation will 
be consumed and appear infinite and 
holy, whereas it now appears finite 
and corrupt. 

This will come to pass by an im- 
provement of sensual enjoyment. 

But first the notion that man has 

25 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

a body distinct from his soul is to be 
expunged; this I shall do by printing 
in the infernal method by corrosives, 
which in Hell are salutary and medici- 
nal, melting apparent surfaces away, 
and displaying the infinite which was 
hid. 

If the doors of perception were 
cleansed everything would appear to 
man as it is, infinite. 

For man has closed himself up, till 
he sees all things through narrow 
chinks of his cavern. 



26 



HEAVEN AND HELL 



A MEMORABLE FANCY 

I was in a printing-house in Hell, 
and saw the method in which knowl- 
edge is transmitted from generation 
to generation. 

In the first chamber was a dragon- 
man, clearing away the rubbish from 
a cave's mouth; within, a number of 
dragons were hollowing the cave. 

In the second chamber was a viper 
folding round the rock and the cave, 
and others adorning it with gold, silver, 
and precious stones. 

In the third chamber was an eagle 
with wings and feathers of air; he 
caused the inside of the cave to be 
infinite; around were numbers of 
eagle-like men, who built palaces in 
the immense cliffs. 

In the fourth chamber were lions 

27 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

of flaming fire raging around and 
melting the metals into living fluids. 

In the fifth chamber were unnamed 
forms, which cast the metals into the 
expanse. 

There they were received by men 
who occupied the sixth chamber, and 
took the forms of books, and were 
arranged in libraries. 

The Giants who formed this world 
into its sensual existence and now 
seem to live in it in chains are in 
truth the causes of its life and the 
sources of all activity, but the chains 
are the cunning of weak and tame 
minds, which have power to resist 
energy, according to the proverb, 
"The weak in courage is strong in 
cunning." 

Thus one portion of being is the 

28 



HEAVEN AND HELL 

Prolific, the other the Devouring. To 
the devourer it seems as if the pro- 
ducer was in his chains; but it is not 
so, he only takes portions of existence, 
and fancies that the whole. 

But the Prolific would cease to be 
prolific unless the Devourer as a sea 
received the excess of his delights. 

Some will say, "Is not God alone 
the Prolific?" I answer: "God only 
acts and is in existing beings or 
men." 

These two classes of men are always 
upon earth, and they should be ene- 
mies: whoever tries to reconcile them 
seeks to destroy existence. 

Religion is an endeavour to recon- 
cile the two. 

Note. — Jesus Christ did not wish 
to unite but to separate them, as in 
the parable of sheep and goats; and 

29 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

He says : " I came not to send peace, 
but a sword." 

Messiah, or Satan, or Tempter, was 
formerly thought to be one of the 
antediluvians who are our Energies. 



30 



HEAVEN AND HELL 



A MEMORABLE FANCY 

An Angel came to me and said: "0 
pitiable foolish young man! hor- 
rible, dreadful state! Consider the 
hot burning dungeon thou art prepar- 
ing for thyself to all Eternity, to which 
thou art going in such career." 

I said : " Perhaps you will be willing 
to show me my eternal lot, and we 
will contemplate together upon it, and 
see whether your lot or mine is most 
desirable.'* 

So he took me through a stable, and 
through a church, and down into the 
church vault, at the end of v/hich was 
a mill; through the mill we went, and 
came to a cave; down the winding 
cavern we groped our tedious way, 
till a void boundless as a nether sky 
appeared beneath us, and we held by 

31 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

the roots of trees, and hung over this 
immensity; but I said: "If you please, 
we will commit ourselves to this void, 
and see whether Providence is here 
also; if you will not, I will." But he 
answered : " Do not presume, young 
man; but as we here remain, behold 
thy lot, which will soon appear when 
the darkness passes away." 

So I remained with him sitting in 
the twisted root of an oak; he was 
suspended in a fungus, which hung 
with the head downward into the 
deep. 

By degrees we beheld the infinite 
abyss, fiery as the smoke of a burning 
city; beneath us at an immense dis- 
tance was the sun, black but shining; 
round it were fiery tracks on which 
revolved vast spiders, crawling after 
their prey, which flew, or rather 
swum, in the infinite deep, in the most 

32 



HEAVEN AND HELL 

terrific shapes of animals sprung from 
corruption; and the air was full of 
them, and seemed composed of them. 
These are Devils, and are called powers 
of the air. I now asked my com- 
panion which was my eternal lot. 
He said: "Between the black and 
white spiders.'' 

But now, from between the black 
and white spiders, a cloud and fire 
burst and rolled through the deep, 
blackening all beneath so that the 
nether deep grew black as a sea, and 
rolled with a terrible noise. Beneath 
us was nothing now to be seen but a 
black tempest, till looking East be- 
tween the clouds and the waves, we 
saw a cataract of blood mixed with 
fire, and not many stones' throw from 
us appeared and sunk again the scaly 
fold of a monstrous serpent. At last 
to the East, distant about three degrees, 
appeared a fiery crest above the waves ; 

33 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

slowly it reared like a ridge of golden 
rocks, till we discovered two globes 
of crimson fire, from which the sea 
fled away in clouds of smoke; and 
now we saw it was the head of Le- 
viathan. His forehead was divided 
into streaks of green and purple, like 
those on a tiger's forehead; soon we 
saw his mouth and red gills hang just 
above the raging foam, tinging the 
black deeps with beams of blood, ad- 
vancing toward us with all the fury 
of a spiritual existence. 

My friend the Angel climbed up 
from his station into the mill. I 
remained alone, and then this ap- 
pearance was no more; but I found 
myself sitting on a pleasant bank beside 
a river by moonlight, hearing a harper 
who sung to the harp; and his theme 
was: "The man who never alters his 
opinion is like standing water, and 
breeds reptiles of the mind." 

34 



HEAVEN AND HELL 

But I arose, and sought for the 
mill, and there I found my Angel, 
who, surprised, asked me how I 
escaped. 

I answered: "All that we saw was 
owing to your metaphysics; for when 
you ran away, I found myself on a 
bank by moonlight, hearing a harper. 
But now we have seen my eternal 
lot, shall I show you yours?" He 
laughed at my proposal; but I by 
force suddenly caught him in my 
arms, and flew Westerly through the 
night, till we were elevated above the 
earth's shadow; then I flung myself 
with him directly into the body of the 
sun; here I clothed myself in white, 
and taking in my hand Swedenborg*s 
volumes, sunk from the glorious clime, 
and passed all the planets till we came 
to Saturn. Here I stayed to rest, and 
then leaped into the void between 
Saturn and the fixed stars. 

35 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

"Here," said I, "is your lot; in this 
space, if space it may be called." 
Soon we saw the stable and the church, 
and I took him to the altar and opened 
the Bible, and lo! it was a deep pit, 
into which I descended, driving the 
Angel before me. Soon we saw seven 
houses of brick. One we entered. In 
it were a number of monkeys, baboons, 
and all of that species, chained by the 
middle, grinning and snatching at one 
another, but withheld by the shortness 
of their chains. However, I saw that 
they sometimes grew numerous, and 
then the weak were caught by the 
strong, and with a grinning aspect, 
first coupled with and then devoured 
by plucking off first one Umb and then 
another till the body was left a help- 
less trunk; this, after grinning and 
kissing it with seeming fondness, they 
devoured too. And here and there I 
saw one savourily picking the fiesh off 

36 



HEAVEN AND HELL 

his own tail. As the stench terribly 
annoyed us both, we went into the 
mill; and I in my hand brought the 
skeleton of a body, which in the mill 
was Aristotle's Analytics. 

So the Angel said; "Thy phantasy 
has imposed upon me, and thou ought- 
est to be ashamed." 

I answered: "We impose on one 
another, and it is but lost time to con- 
verse with you whose works are only 
Analytics.'* 

"I have always found that Angels 
have the vanity to speak of them- 
selves as the only wise; this they do 
with a confident insolence sprouting 
from systematic reasoning. 

"Thus Swedenborg boasts that what 
he writes is new ; though it is only the 
contents or index of already published 
books. 

37 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

"A man carried a monkey about 
for a show, and because he was a Uttle 
wiser than the monkey, grew vain, 
and conceived himself as much wiser 
than seven men. It is so with 
Swedenborg; he shows the folly of 
churches, and exposes hypocrites, till 
he imagines that all are religious, and 
himself the single one on earth that 
ever broke a net. 

"Now hear a plain fact: Sweden- 
borg has not written one new truth. 
Now hear another: he has written all 
the old falsehoods. 

"And now hear the reason: he con- 
versed with Angels who are all re- 
ligious, and conversed not with Devils 
who all hate reUgion, for he was 
incapable through his conceited no- 
tions. 

"Thus Swedenborg's writings are 
a recapitulation of all superficial 

38 



HEAVEN AND HELL 

opinions, and an analysis of the more 
sublime, but no further. 

"Have now another plain fact: any 
man of mechanical talents may from 
the writings of Paracelsus or Jacob 
Behmen produce ten thousand volumes 
of equal value with Swedenborg's, and 
from those of Dante or Shakespeare an 
infinite number. 

"But when he has done this, let 
him not say that he knows better than 
his master, for he only holds a candle 
in sunshine." 



39 



THE MARRIAGE OF 



A MEMORABLE FANCY 

Once I saw a Devil in a flame of 
fire, who arose before an Angel that 
sat on a cloud, and the Devil uttered 
these words: "The worship of God is, 
honouring His gifts in other men each 
according to his genius, and loving 
the greatest men best. Those who 
envy or calumniate great men hate 
God, for there is no other God." 

The Angel hearing this became 
almost blue, but mastering himself he 
grew yellow, and at last white-pink 
and smiling, and then replied: "Thou 
idolater, is not God One? and is not 
He visible in Jesus Christ? and has 
not Jesus Christ given His sanction to 
the law of ten commandments? and 
are not all other men fools, sinners, 
and nothings?" 

40 



HEAVEN AND HELL 

The Devil answered: "Bray a fool 
in a mortar with wheat, yet shall not 
his folly be beaten out of him. If 
Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you 
ought to love Him in the greatest 
degree. Now hear how He has given 
His sanction to the law of ten com- 
mandments. Did He not mock at the 
Sabbath, and so mock the Sabbath's 
God? murder those who were mur- 
dered because of Him? turn away the 
law from the woman taken in adultery, 
steal the labour of others to support 
Him? bear false witness when He 
omitted making a defence before 
Pilate? covet when He prayed for His 
disciples, and when He bid them 
shake off the dust of their feet against 
such as refused to lodge them? I tell 
you, no virtue can exist without break- 
ing these ten commandments. Jesus 
was all virtue, and acted from im- 
pulse, not from rules." 

41 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

When he had so spoken, I beheld 
the Angel, who stretched out his arms 
embracing the flame of fire, and he 
was consumed, and arose as Elijah. 

Note. — This Angel, who is now 
become a Devil, is my particular 
friend; we often read the Bible to- 
gether in its infernal or diabolical 
sense, which the world shall have if 
they behave well. 

I have also the Bible of Hell, which 
the world shall have whether they 
will or no. 

One law for the lion and ox is Op- 
pression. 



42 



HEAVEN AND HELL 



A SONG OF LIBERTY 

1. The Eternal Female groan'd; it 
was heard over all the earth: 

2. Albion's coast is sick silent; the 
American meadows faint. 

3. Shadows of prophecy shiver 
along by the lakes and the rivers, and 
mutter across the ocean. France, 
rend down thy dungeon! 

4. Golden Spain, burst the barriers 
of old Rome ! 

5. Cast thy keys, Rome, into 
the deep — down falling, even to 
eternity down falling; 

6. And weep! 

7. In her trembling hands she took 
the new-born terror, howling. 

8. On those infinite mountains 
of light now barr'd out by the Atlantic 

43 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

sea, the new-born fire stood before the 
starry king. 

9. Flagg'd with grey-browM snows 
and thunderous visages, the jealous 
wings wavM over the deep. 

10. The speary hand burn'd aloft; 
unbuckled was the shield; forth went 
the hand of jealousy among the flam- 
ing hair, and hurl'd the new-born 
wonder through the starry night. 

11. The fire, the fire is falling ! 

12. Look up! look up! citizen 
of London, enlarge thy countenance! 
O Jew, leave counting gold; return to 
thy oil and wine! African, black 
African! (Go, winged thought, widen 
his forehead.) 

13. The fiery limbs, the flaming hair 
shot like the sinking sun into the 
Western sea. 

14. WakM from his eternal sleep, 
the hoary element roaring fled away. 

44 



HEAVEN AND HELL 

15. Down rush'd, beating his wings 
in vain, the jealous king, his grey- 
brow'd councillors, thunderous war- 
riors, curl'd veterans, among helms 
and shields, and chariots, horses, ele- 
phants, banners, castles, slings, and 
rocks. 

16. Falling, rushing, ruining; 
buried in the ruins, on Urthona's 
dens. 

17. All night beneath the ruins; 
then their sullen flames, faded, emerge 
round the gloomy king. 

18. With thunder and fire, leading 
his starry hosts through the waste 
wilderness, he promulgates his ten 
commandments, glancing his beamy 
eyelids over the deep in dark dismay. 

19. Where the Son of Fire in his 
Eastern cloud, while the Morning 
plumes her golden breast, 

20. Spuming the clouds written 

45 



THE MARRIAGE OF 

with curses, stamps the stony law to 
dust, loosing the eternal horses from 
the dens of night, crying: "Empire is 
no more! and now the lion and wolf 
shall cease." 



46 



HEAVEN AND HELL 



CHORUS 

Let the Priests of the Raven of 
Dawn, no longer in deadly black, with 
hoarse note curse the Sons of Joy. 
Nor his accepted brethren whom, 
tyrant, he calls free, lay the bound or 
build the roof. Nor pale religious 
lechery call that virginity that wishes, 
but acts not ! 

For everything that lives is holy. 



47 



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